More than 1,100 DWP staff warned over prying on benefits records

FOI request reveals extent of privacy breaches

More than 1,100 Department of Work and Pensions staff have received official warnings in the last five years for prying on sensitive benefits records, Government figures show.

Since 2008, 110 DWP workers with access to files on pensions, child support payments, tax credits, Job Seekers Allowance and other benefits have been issued with oral warnings for “inappropriate access or browsing of personal/customer records”.

A further 422 staff were handed written warnings and 585 got a final written warning, a Freedom of Information Act request revealed.

The privacy breaches are part of a detailed breakdown of computer misuse in the DWP. Hundreds of staff were also warned over sending inappropriate emails and abusing internet access, such as by visiting pornography websites.

Bad discipline, including violating privacy and internet policies, led to 1,487 sackings over the five-year period in the department.

A DWP spokesman said: “DWP is the biggest Government department and over this five-year period we have employed over 150,000 people with the vast majority adhering to the professional standards.

“DWP takes inappropriate use of IT systems very seriously which is why we monitor daily usage and have robust policies in place to deal with the minority of cases of abuse.”

The DWP employs tens of thousands of staff in 20 contact centres spread around the country, from Torquay to Paisley.

David Howell of the IT provider ManageEngine said the figures showed “the importance of implementing a more rigorous acceptable use policy to uphold high standards and ensure confidential data is managed securely”.

“Incidents such as these can potentially undermine the integrity and standards of an organisation,” he said.

The DWP IT department is currently grappling with a massive project to integrate systems with HMRC’s tax system to allow benefits to be combined in a single Universal Credit payment.

The scheme was designed by Iain Duncan Smith, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, to ensure that it always pays better to take a low-paid job than stay on benefits. Its implementation was described this week by Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, as “pretty lamentable”.